


All the waves in the sea

by FancifulRivers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU- Mostly Everyone Lives, Child Abandonment, Child Neglect, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I mean Chara is still Technically Dead but also Still Alive in Frisk so, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Misgendering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 06:29:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5487056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulRivers/pseuds/FancifulRivers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frisk falls down a hole into a world of monsters.</p>
<p>All they want is out. No matter what it takes to do it.</p>
<p>Chara disagrees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the waves in the sea

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Undertale.
> 
> So a lot of stories I've read, Chara is trying to influence Frisk to do bad things, for whatever reason.
> 
> So in this one, it's the other way around. :p

It's chance your foot catches against the hole, knocking you headfirst down it. You can hear your pursuer behind you, but his crashing footsteps (not to mention the low-voiced barks of his dog) swiftly evaporate as you fall. You can't help but think this is the shittiest way to go you've ever heard of. It's luck you fall face-down into a patch of golden flowers instead, knocking the breath from you. Your pursuer from the town doesn't fall in after you. He probably assumes that you're dead, you think to yourself and giggle silently into the flowers, feeling golden dust cling to every inch of exposed skin. As you clamber to your feet, you realize you are bruised and bloody, but nothing seems to be broken. Another stroke of luck.

The talking flower is something else, though. Your fingers scrabble through the flowers, finally landing on a stick, and while it's a pitiful weapon (especially against a talking, murderous flower), you feel better to have something in your hands. You can agree with the flower's motto though. "Kill or be killed" is yours, too.

It's not until another monster comes, with red eyes and goat horns and the softest paws you've ever felt, levering you up and offering you help, that you first realize perhaps you're not alone in your body anymore.

Chara is the stupidest name you've ever heard of, although you don't have much room to talk, since your name is Frisk. You can see them vaguely, out of the corner of your eye when you don't concentrate too hard. They look kind of like you. Messy brown hair, vaguely striped sweater. They hold a knife like it's a teddy bear and you can understand that. Your own stick is a poor substitute. 

Toriel is the monster's name and you kind of want to stab her with the stick. You don't trust her gentle eyes or her talk of cinnamon and butterscotch, of bandages and medicine. The world above promised those things, too, and they were all lies. There's nothing for someone like you, a scrawny homeless kid, abandoned at a bus stop. You were put in an orphanage, but you escaped as soon as you could. There was no refuge for you there. Adoptive parents wanted cute babies and smiling, blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girls. Not red-eyed little monsters with jagged brown hair you cut yourself, who held a toy knife like it was better than a baby doll, who didn't know their parents' names or where they came from, only that they weren't a girl and  _if you call me a girl one more time, I'm going to kick you in the head and make you scream-_

You'd done it, too. It wasn't easy to topple a grown-up, but you had, and the feel of your sneaker sinking into the perfumed curls of hair had been enormously satisfying. Being locked in the basement after wasn't, but you were used to that, too. Corruption is everywhere. 

Toriel's bigger than you're used to, but your stance is perpetually wary, and you can't help but eye the backs of her knees as she leads you to her house. It probably wouldn't take that much.

_Don't_ \- Chara tells you, and something in their voice makes you pause. 

_Why not?_ you demand. The answer is a complicated blend of emotions that you stand still for a moment trying to parse through. It's exhausting and you're ensconced in a sofa with a slice of pie before you think you've got it figured out. The fact that you nearly call Toriel "mom" helps.

_Fine,_ you acquiesce grumpily. It helps that the pie is the most delicious you've ever tasted. 

You can't stay there, though. You don't want to stay there. Confinement chafes, no matter how much Chara seems to be content with it. You don't get that, either. If Toriel's their mother, why won't they let her know that they are around? You ask them this and they don't answer. All you can feel for hours after is unfathomable longing and a desperate, guilty grief.

You manage to escape. The puzzles stump you a bit, but it's nothing you can't handle. Chara helps too, and it's nice, feeling like maybe you aren't alone for once. You'd tried expressing that sentiment once, but your social worker had just scrunched her eyebrows at you and told you that of course you weren't alone. She didn't get it. Adults didn't count. Kids, though- maybe even dead kids did. 

You know Chara has to be dead. The fact they don't have a corporal body is a good giveaway. They ask you hesitantly if you mind and you don't hesitate for a second before telling them you don't. It helps you've just met two living skeletons and if they can still walk and talk and make spaghetti (sort of), then why can't a ghost kid sharing your body? Papyrus makes you smile, because you think maybe it's impossible not to smile around him. You wish you'd met him outside. If he'd been at the orphanage, maybe you wouldn't have run away. So fast anyway. 

You like Sans, but he kind of scares you too, and you know he scares Chara. When you hang out with the skeletons, Chara goes very quiet in the back of your head, like the slightest wrong move will bring Sans somehow crashing into your skull, eye socket lit bright, burning blue. You know that would be impossible, but Chara doesn't seem to. When you leave, they immediately slide back out, sidling toward you like a kid with a guilty conscience. You don't pry. You know what it's like to have secrets.

You meet a lot of other monsters. Undyne. Muffet. Napstablook. Alphys. Mettaton. Their names start to run together in your head. You've never been good at telling people apart. Chara has to do it for you and isn't that embarrassing? Having to stand stock still like a ninny for twenty seconds, while the dead kid in your head tells you who someone is? You guess it's okay though.

It's hard not to run away. It's hard not to stand your ground and kill them all. Sometimes you wish you had more than just a fucking stick. Sometimes when you look down, you can see the glitter of metal, cold and dusty. Chara gets nearly frantic when that happens and you end up shoved to the back while they have a panic attack or whatever they do when they manage to shut you out. You aren't sure but when you come to your senses, you aren't bleeding or dying or puking, so you don't particularly care.

It's creepy in Chara's old room. You don't know how you know it's theirs. There's a drawing of a flower on the wall, and a photo on the dresser. You look at it curiously. Chara's in it, holding a bouquet of golden flowers. Toriel's there but you don't recognize the other two. Chara traces their faces and names them for you.  _Asgore. Asriel._ One big happy family, you think bitterly, and have to bite your bottom lip so hard it bleeds to keep from saying it out loud, too. It would be wrong to disturb the tomb-like stillness of this dusty room.

There's a locket in here and Chara puts it on before you have a chance to say yes or no. There's a worn knife in here, too, and Chara puts it in your pocket, but makes you hold your stick instead. You find this massively unfair but every time you try to ease it out, to feel the comforting grip of  _some_ kind of weapon, Chara stops you. It's infuriating, but you don't know how to stop them. Their smugness over that is unbearable.

You can't believe, in the end, you're fighting an overpowered daffodil. You dodge and duck and run and leap, thanking whoever watches over you that you've gotten so much practice, learning how to dumpster dive without being caught and dodging the bullies in the orphanage. The dagger feels like it's burning a hole in your pocket but even when you've got a killer flower on your tail, Chara won't let you touch it. It's bullshit and you tell them it's bullshit and all they tell you in response is to duck.

You don't even know why you're doing this. You might care about some of the monsters down here, but that's just it. They're monsters. They don't matter. They're like you, really, because you don't matter either and when Chara hears the tail-end of that thought, they frown and for a moment, you can see them wavering in front of you, nearly solid.

_Yes, you do,_ they say, and you don't know how, but their determination is the only thing that saves you from total annihilation. It sounds so dramatic when you say it like that, but you can't think of any other way, because it's true.

And what does it say when your best friend is dead? (What's it say when their best friend's a soulless plant?) Does it matter?

You can almost feel it when Chara hugs you. It's awkward and one-armed (you think) and when it's done, Chara just kind of glares at you and mutters that it was a one-time thing anyway, but you know it wasn't, not really.

They tell you that you can be an ambassador if you like. Between the monsters and the humans. You don't know how to feel about it. Chara tells you to shut up and take it, but you just stick your tongue out at them (never mind everyone else can see you). You let them make decisions about the underground, but this isn't just the underground anymore. This is life and freedom and you tell them no, but not before Sans weasels it out of you that it's because you don't have anywhere to go out there, and before you know it, you've got a whole schedule mapped out for you, spending this week with Sans and Papyrus, that week with Undine and Alphys, and weekends alternating with Toriel and Asgore. (Chara spends the next hour crying and laughing and you just leave them to it after five minutes because hell if you can figure out if they're happy or sad. You find out later it's both.)

The day the exodus is planned, you stand at the head of the line, legs shaking but determined, arms wrapped around a ceramic flowerpot (because if you're going to do this, you're going to do it right. Nobody gets left behind, not even the grumpy flower who tried to kill you). You don't know anymore what you'll find above, but you think maybe you already found the most important things.

_And I don't mean you,_ you add to Chara, who scowls at you and manages to flick your nose so that it hurts. The weight of the locket is comforting, nestled between your collarbones. 

The mountain breeze blowing through your hair tastes like freedom.


End file.
